MS. Bhaskar Industries Ltd Vs MS. Bhiwani Denim & Apparels Ltd and Ors Archives

This is a good judgment from Madras High Court which held that, a Magistrate can dispense with appearance of accused in a criminal case on first appearance itself, if accused is represented by an Advocate and supported by reasonable excuse.

Beautiful articulation of fact situation on the ground

From Para 15,

15. However, this Court is much concerned if the counsel who is permitted to represent the petitioners/accused is absent on the ground of boycott. In such circumstances, the Court below is at liberty to proceed in accordance with law. Persons belonging to the legal profession are concededly the elite of the society. They have always been in the vanguard of progress and development of not only law but the polity as a whole. Citizenry looks at them with hope and expectations for traversing on the new paths and virgin fields to be marched on by the society. The profession by and large, till date has undoubtedly performed its duties and obligations and has never hesitated to shoulder its responsibilities in larger interests of mankind. The lawyers, who have been acknowledged as being sober, task-oriented, professionally-responsible stratum of the population, are further obliged to utilise their skills for socio-political modernisation of the country. The lawyers are a force for the preservance and strengthening of constitutional government as they are guardians of the modern legal system. But now-a-days, unfortunately, strikes, boycott calls and even unruly are becoming a frequent spectacles and boycotting the Courts by Advocates has come a regular feature in this state and almost throughout a year, one section or the other of the members of the Bar abstain from Courts and thereby making this Chartered High Court into shattered position. No Advocate has a right to abstain from Court without first returning the briefs to his clients and refunding the fees received from them. It is well known that several clients are paying through their nose by borrowing heavily to their advocates and it is a matter of life and death for them. Advocates who are boycotting the Courts for one cause of so, should not ignore the fact that there have been several causes before the Courts pending for disposal and their act of boycotting would lead to a travesty of justice and destroy the basic democracy, which would tantamount to failure of administration of justice. Failure of a lawyer to attend to his case in Court would not only be breach of contract and breach of trust, but also professional misconduct.

In such circumstances, this Court feels it appropriate to make the following:
i) No advocate has right to stall the court proceedings on the ground that advocates have decided to strike or to boycott the courts or even boycott any particular court. With the strike by the lawyers, the process of court intended to secure justice is obstructed which is unwarranted under the provisions of the Advocates Act.
ii) It is always open to the litigants to claim damages and also to move the Consumer forum for appropriate compensation and for damages that had caused to them by theirs Advocates by not representing the matters in Courts;
ii) No Advocate shall be permitted to represent the matter without robes (dress-code) on boycott day;
iii) The Courts below shall record the non-apperance of the Advocates due to boycott in the listed case proceedings and proceed with the matters on merits;
iv) After recording such non-apperance of the Advocates, the Courts below shall report the same to the Bar Council of India for appropriate action and it would facilitate the litigants to pursue the matter with the Bar Council of India.
The Registry is directed to issue a copy of this order to all the subordinate Courts dealing with civil and criminal matters.

Ajay Kumar Bisnoi and Anr Vs MS KEI Industries Limited on 25 September 2015

Other Source links: https://indiankanoon.org/doc/117608503/

Supreme Court held the scope of 205 CrPC in this judgment as,

Second is that it is difficult, in the absence of other materials, to decide positively whether the order dated 28.4.2000 is an interlocutory order only.
The interdict contained in Section 397(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (for short the Code) is that the powers of revision shall not be exercised in relation to any interlocutory order. Whether an order is interlocutory or not, cannot be decided by merely looking at the order or merely because the order was passed at the interlocutory stage. The safe test laid down by this Court through a series of decisions is this: If the contention of the petitioner who moves the superior court in revision, as against the order under challenge is upheld, would the criminal proceedings as a whole culminate? If it would,then the order is not interlocutory in spite of the fact that it was passed during any interlocutory stage.

And

Section 251 is the commencing provision in Chapter XX of the Code which deals with trial of summons cases by magistrates. It enjoins on the court to ask the accused whether he pleads guilty when the accused appears or is brought before the magistrate. The appearance envisaged therein can either be by personal attendance of the accused or through his advocate. This can be understood from Section 205(1) of the Code which says that whenever a magistrate issues a summons, he may, if he sees reason so to do, dispense with the personal attendance of the accused and permit him to appear by his pleader.
17. Thus, in appropriate cases the magistrate can allow an accused to make even the first appearance through a counsel. The magistrate is empowered to record the plea of the accused even when his counsel makes such plea on behalf of the accused in a case where the personal appearance of the accused is dispensed with. Section 317 of the Code has to be viewed in the above perspective as it empowers the court to dispense with the personal attendance of the accused (provided he is represented by a counsel in that case) even for proceeding with the further steps in the case. However, one precaution which the court should take in such a situation is that the said benefit need be granted only to an accused who gives an undertaking to the satisfaction of the court that he would not dispute his identity as the particular accused in the case, and that a counsel on his behalf would be present in court and that he has no objection in taking evidence in his absence. This precaution is necessary for the further progress of the proceedings including examination of the witnesses.

“18. A question could legitimately be asked – what might happen if the counsel engaged by the accused (whose personal appearance is dispensed with) does not appear or that the counsel does not co-operate in proceeding with the case? We may point out that the legislature has taken care for such eventualities. Section 205(2) says that the magistrate can in his discretion direct the personal attendance of the accused at any stage of the proceedings. The last limb of Section 317(1) confers a discretion on the magistrate to direct the personal attendance of the accused at any subsequent stage of the proceedings. He can even resort to other steps for enforcing such attendance.

“19. The position, therefore, bogs down to this: It is within the powers of a magistrate and in his judicial discretion to dispense with the personal appearance of an accused either throughout or at any particular stage of such proceedings in a summons case, if the magistrate finds that insistence of his personal presence would itself inflict enormous suffering or tribulations to him, and the comparative advantage would be less. Such discretion need be exercised only in rare instances where due to the far distance at which the accused resides or carries on business or on account of any physical or other good reasons the magistrate feels that dispensing with the personal attendance of the accused would only be in the interests of justice. However, the magistrate who grants such benefit to the accused must take the precautions enumerated above, as a matter of course. We may reiterate that when an accused makes an application to a magistrate through his duly authorised counsel praying for affording the benefit of his personal presence being dispensed with the magistrate can consider all aspects and pass appropriate orders thereon before proceeding further.”

MS. Bhaskar Industries Ltd Vs MS. Bhiwani Denim & Apparels Ltd and Ors on 27 August 2001

Citations: [2001 KHC 0 714], [2001 AIR SC 3625], [2001 UC 2 370], [2001 AD SC 6 612], [2001 SCC 6 339], [2001 AWC SC 4 2981], [2001 CRI LJ 4250], [2001 JIC 2 685], [2001 MPLJ 3 664], [2001 SUPREME 6 339], [2001 AIR SC 0 3413], [2001 JCC 2 127], [2001 ACR SC 3 2297], [2001 KERLT 3 307], [2001 JT SC 7 127], [2001 SCC 7 401], [2001 CRIMES SC 4 199], [2002 PLJR 4 95], [2002 MAHLJ 1 81], [2002 BOMCR CRI SC 190], [2002 BOMCR SC 2 265], [2002 ALT CRI 1 13], [2001 RCR CRI 4 137], [2003 JLJ SC 1 56], [2001 SCALE 5 503], [2001 CRLJ 0 4250], [2001 S SCR 2 219], [2001 SCC CR 0 1254], [2001 RCR CRIMINAL 4 137], [2001 DCR SC 602], [2001 OLR 2 613], [2002 LJ 1 161], [2001 CCR 0 208], [2001 SRJ 8 415], [2001 CRLR SC 0 481], [2001 SCC CRI 0 1254], [2001 CALCRILR 0 481], [2001 SLT 6 120], [2001 CCR 3 208], [2001 ALLMR CRI 0 1961], [2001 SCJ 3 176], [2002 BCR 2 265], [2002 MHLJ SC 1 81], [2001 ALD CRI 2 530], [2002 BCR CRI 0 190]

Shades of Knife

True Colors of a Vile Wife

Tag: MS. Bhaskar Industries Ltd Vs MS. Bhiwani Denim & Apparels Ltd and Ors

Ajay Kumar Bisnoi and Anr Vs MS KEI Industries Limited on 25 September 2015

MS. Bhaskar Industries Ltd Vs MS. Bhiwani Denim and Apparels Ltd and Ors on 27 August 2001